Over the course of this project processes to digitize complex design models of sculptures will be developed and evaluated. The digitization will form the basis for further planing and ultimately the realization of the art work.

As a showcase for a whole family of similar problems we will use a design for a sculpture titled ‘Dancing Bubbles’ [1] by Eberhard Jordan. The design resembles a complex irregular wood respectively bamboo structure composed of about 900 individual roods, its total high is about 6 meter. The design, as it is often the case in similar projects, solely represented by a 1:25 scale model. To be able to build the structure in 1:1 scale a high quality digital model, used for dimensioning, simulation, detailing, license planing, construction planning, per-production on CNC machines, etc., is needed.

The first step, digitizing the scale model and deriving a geometric model, already poses a serious problem. We will test various methods (among others computer tomography and photogrammetry) on the scale model and use the raw-data to obtain a high quality digital model of the geometry. This model will than be further developed and used to simulate the structural behavior of the design using FEM simulation.

The project is funded by the FFG (https://www.ffg.at/).

[1] http://www.eberhardjordan.com/dancing-bubbles/